Raising Springs - Shock/Strut question

[arootbeer]

Apologies in advance if I've missed this being addressed somewhere, but I've been searching the subject off and on for at least a month and decided to just ask the question.

 

I've got an '05 LGT MT with 112K on what I believe to be the original suspension. I picked up a set of H&R raising springs, but I haven't been able to find any information about what the shock/strut recommendations for raising springs are.

 

My assumption would be that the 1.3" raise the springs advertise would mean that the shocks would simply experience a greater travel range under compression, but that the total stroke length of the shock/strut should not have to change. (IOW - that the OEM stroke length should be fine.) Is that correct?

[boxkita]

you could get an outback get all the ground clearance you need. Any number of folks would swap with you. Or you could buy an outback suspension and swap in. It would be cheaper and better riding

[arootbeer]

Interesting thought. Would you expect the handling to be be better, as well as the ride? My goal is "sporty daily driver". I'm pushing 20PSI through a 16G turbo, so the stock suspension is a very glaring weakness.

[boxkita]

well raising 1.5" is certainly going to make it worse handling.

 

improving a stock suspension usually takes a good chunk of money and you still give up alot. the stock suspension with less than 30,000 miles was very good. at 200,000, everything needs to be replaced.

[Infosecdad]

Interesting thought. Would you expect the handling to be be better, as well as the ride? My goal is "sporty daily driver". I'm pushing 20PSI through a 16G turbo, so the stock suspension is a very glaring weakness.

 

"Sporty daily driver" doesn't seem to match with "raise the suspension 1.3 in".

Usually you do better with a lower center of gravity, not higher.

 

15 years and 112k miles, not surprised that it's a bit wallowing now.

Replacing all the bushings and getting a slightly used set of JDM bilsteins or Koni drop ins with a matching spring will do wonders to the handling.

Slightly bigger sway bars can help, but the lift makes me think "off-road" where you probably don't want bigger bars.

[arootbeer]

I appreciate the input from both of you. It sounds like I may not have been too clear with how I represented the current state of the handling, so I'll try to address that.

 

The car corners and carves to my taste - very neutrally, very controllably. It's certainly possible for it to get out of hand, but I figure just replacing the shocks and struts with GR2s would be enough to take care of those instances within the tolerances of my actual driving skills.

 

But a lot of the roads around here have sudden drops where the ground has sunk or risen slightly, some of which I can't imagine being less than 6" change in level, and there have been plenty of times where I've scraped the mufflers as the back end dumped off the drop, and I swear there was one time I scraped the floor of the car when I went over a bump on a section of road that also drops off to the right about 1/3 of the way from the center line. So a lot of my goal with raising would simply be to keep the car that much further above the ground, and I'm asking about handling simply because I don't want to substantially worsen the handling the car already exhibits.

 

I recognize that the center of gravity is one of the keys to handling, but I have to imagine the H&Rs are stiffer than the stock springs, which should contribute positively, right? That was what I was trying to compare to the Outback suspension, which I would assume has very similar spring rates to the LGT, but IIRC would raise the car almost 2 inches.

[zactek]

I was in the same boat a few years back. I didn't want to lower the car (as we have crappy streets here too and I wanted to keep the clearance since it's a DD) and wanted to keep it simple stock ride height without coilovers. Got a good deal on KYB's and found King springs (stock ride height but 30% stiffer). At around the same mileage as yours my stock springs dropped around 1- 1 1/4in. So getting the setup with the KYB/King raised me to a good stock height. I have it now for a few years and love it. Comfortable yet firm. You also can't just throw Outback struts on,as the strut bodies are 2' longer. Unless you get spacers for the F/R suspension,your angles will be all wrong and you will have massive POSITIVE camber.

[zactek]

Also,the strut body limits how high the car can go. You can get a shorter spring and lower the car,but not get a longer spring and raise the car. You can get a stiffer spring that will make the car's weight sit higher than stock,like the H&R or King.